


Paging Doctors Bergen and Kohler

by Je_Suis_Une_Pomme



Series: Mediverse [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: I originally set out to write angst and it came out as fluff..., M/M, Mediverse, Pining, canberry muffins, doctors bein doctors, it's basically a soap opera and everyone works at the hospital and crap hits the fan a lot, long distance, medical AU, not everyone is OK, writing letters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 09:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12208257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Je_Suis_Une_Pomme/pseuds/Je_Suis_Une_Pomme
Summary: The head of the Pediatrics Department and a gifted trauma surgeon find love between the stresses of a career in the medical profession.





	Paging Doctors Bergen and Kohler

**Author's Note:**

> This is a remastered version of the fic I wrote: “Paging Doctors Bondevik and Kohler” posted on FanFiction. It’s the exact same story, but edited, added description, and extra scenes.  
> If you’ve read the original posting of this from 2015, the first thing you will notice is that the name of the title and corresponding character has changed! Previously, Lukas Bondevik, Aph Norway is now Lukas Bergen. 
> 
> It is my goal to finish this remastered version in time to write the sequel for Nanowrimo 2017.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has ever helped me work on this: Jin, Dani, Vee... And Eliza for always being a fan!
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. This is not an accurate description of medical situations, or how hospitals actually work. Any similarities to people or events, past or present, is unintentional.

Mathias took a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow when the door to the OR slid open.

"Dr. Kohler?"

He looked up, the gruff voice breaking his concentration. Standing with only one foot over the threshold, as rigid as a telephone pole, was Dr. Berwald Oxenstierna. His frame filled the doorway, looming, and he would have looked mildly threatening if Mathias hadn’t known to recognize the downward pull of his thin lips to be anything other than a reflection of his fragile nerves. His gray-blue eyes were wide, an unusual expression for him. He was still holding his hands up in front of him, fresh from scrubbing in, and a nurse was tying on the mint green surgical scrubs at the back of his waist. Mathias knew the patient on his table looked like a mess. He had one of the nurses drape over most of him to hide the extent of his injuries before Berwald arrived. Only his legs were exposed from the mid-thigh down.

"Ah, Dr. Oxenstierna, good. I’m glad you're here."

Dr. O, Berwald, did not move further into the room, instead he eyed the small body laid out on Mathias' operating table.

"I'm no paeds surgeon, Kohler," Berwald said looking uneasy, finally dragging his eyes away from the small body to meet Mathias', panicked. Bleeding Heart Berwald. He was one of the best goddamned surgeons Rowanwood Memorial Hospital, specialized in injuries resulting in amputation. He preferred to be involved in a patient’s health right from the moment of amputation to the final fitting of a prosthetic. He could keep his cool in the face of the most gruesome injuries, he had a steady hand in the OR, and he approached his cases with calm precision. Berwald had the ability to connect with patients on an emotional level, despite his stone-faced exterior. He was simple, blunt, calculating, and, most importantly, compassionate almost to a fault. While Berwald typically shied away from cases involving children, Mathias needed his expertise right now.

"I know, I just need your opinion. Come, take a look at this," he motioned towards the two small legs in front of him, but Berwald remained frozen where he stood. His face was stone solid, processing the situation. The steady beeps from the machinery were the only noise in the room for a moment, all assisting staff collectively holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen.

"Oxenstierna," Mathias prompted and the man lurched forward. He approached the table calmly, steadily, face devoid of emotion. He looked down at the legs and froze again, pursing his lips. He looked up and met Mathias' waiting gaze.

"It's a mess."

"Yeah," Mathias said slowly before heaving a sigh; he resisted the urge to scrub a hand down his face. "What would you do?" He motioned for the nurse at his side to bring the surgical tool tray closer, "Dr. Oxenstierna is stepping in for surgical evaluation," he said to the operative report recording.

Berwald thought a moment and accepted a pair of tissue forceps and a surgical retractor. Dutifully, he bent over the small body and with a gentle, practiced hand began to examine the damage to the boy's limbs.

"How long's he been in surgery? The tissue's severely damaged." Berwald paused and raised an eyebrow, glancing back at Mathias, his glasses flashing in the harsh overhead lighting. One leg was badly shredded, but the bones looked to be whole enough to salvage. The second leg, however, reminded Mathias of raw ground beef that had been moulded into some semblance of a leg – or what was once a leg. Without medical training, one may not notice that there was any bone there at all.

"Ah, what time is it now?" Mathias glanced up at the large clock on the wall, cheery green numbers reading ten past one in the morning. "No more than forty minutes. It took a while to stabilize him before he came in here." Not to mention the suturing and repair of what minor injuries he could, now hidden beneath the sheet, while he waited for Berwald to scrub in. Mathias saw Berwald's eyes briefly flicker across the form under the drapes and return to the legs in front of him; he nodded.

"I'm not sure there's enough blood vessels to salvage." Berwald's eyebrows drew together as he examined where a tibia should have been evident under a crushed patella. ' _Or enough viable bone'_ was an unspoken addition. "There's no blood flow here at all anymore."

Mathias' stomach dropped. He already knew as much. He also knew what Berwald was going to say next, but he needed to hear it from someone else. He would have made the same call without batting an eyelash had his patient been an adult. Children were always the worst: they made him second-guess decisions that would otherwise never trip him up. Severe illness or injuries were not, in his opinion, ever meant to happen to children. Amputation seemed like such an adult issue. Though he knew the limb could not be saved when he first scrubbed into surgery, he had still blindly hoped that a colleague would be able to suggest an alternate diagnosis - to see something he could not.

He cast his eyes towards the viewing gallery. He could feel eyes on him, scrutinizing. "What is your prognosis, Dr. O?"

"You have to amputate." Silence descended upon the OR; everything seemed to stop for a moment. Mathias released his breath and his eyes fell shut. Even if it would save his life, he didn’t want to be the one to cause a kid’s life to change forever. His injuries were going to be difficult enough to recover from, but having a normal childhood ripped away at such a young age seemed to be the cherry atop the sundae of misfortune dealt to the boy and his family.

"You're right, of course. Thank you, Berwald." Mathias had to make a move soon, he was wasting enough precious moments by asking for Berwald’s input as it was, he couldn’t afford to stand here and put off the inevitable.

Berwald made a questioning sound, hesitating in case he was still needed.

"You're free to go. Dr. Oxenstierna is exiting the Operating Room, Dr. Kohler is resuming."

The words of release had barely left his mouth before Berwald was heading for the door, ripping off his surgical cap and mask, his gloves coming off in a snap and aimed for the garbage by the OR exit. Before he could make his escape, however, the doors burst open.

" _No!_ You idiot! It has to be saved!" Dr. Lukas Bergen stood, one foot in the OR and one out, a hand holding a mask over his mouth. His pale blonde hair was pulled back in a hasty ponytail, his gunmetal blue eyes wild beneath eyebrows pinched together in unmistakable fury. A nurse was clutching at him, desperately trying to pull him from the room.

"Dr. Bergen, you can't go in there. Please! You are not authorized or properly scrubbed!"

Mathias was surprised it was Berwald who spoke first. He placed a large hand on Lukas' shoulder, restraining him from entering the OR any further. He nodded to the nurse, who looked at him with pleading eyes, before retreating into the hall.

"It would take a miracle worker to save it, Dr. Bergen."

"I-" Lukas violently shrugged Berwald's hand off him, eyes flashing between Berwald and Mathias. "You _are_ a goddamned miracle worker, Mathias. You have to be."

"There's too much damage," Berwald said softly, taking a hold of Lukas' elbow and steering him from the room.

"You have to try something – anything! He's only eight. You need to give him a chance!"

"I am, Dr. Bergen. This kid's best option is amputation," Mathias said wearily, "It's the _only_ option."

"Dr. Bergen," Berwald again, "there's no blood flow. It'll fester if it's left." Before Lukas could respond with anything further, Berwald forced him from the room.

Mathias exhaled the breath he did not even realize he was holding.

"Alright team, someone get Ortho down here and we can get this show on the road."

*

Mathias was beyond exhausted. He stripped himself of his stained scrubs, mask, and cap as he stumbled into the locker rooms. He collapsed against the shower wall before the water was even hot. He counted on his fingers – he'd been awake close to 30 hours? He wasn't sure how long he stood there, the water running over him, caught halfway between awake and sleeping.

He forced himself to open his eyes and turn the water off and bury his face in a towel. His back ached, his feet hurt, his limbs felt like lead, and a headache he hadn’t noticed earlier was stabbing behind his eyes and in his forehead. He needed to sleep. He needed to eat. He wasn't sure which he would rather do first.

He was just pulling on a t-shirt when a voice called him up from his dizzy reverie.

"Dr. Kohler."

Lukas was leaning against the locker room wall, much too bright for Mathias' tired eyes in his pristine white lab coat, face contorted in barely-controlled rage. His hair was now loose and curling around his face, unbrushed and tangled. He held himself straight and stiff, his arms hugging himself tightly around his middle. Mathias was too tired to have the sort of conversation he sensed was coming. They were constantly dancing on the edge of something caught between co-workers and what could only be described as ‘warm’ when it came to Lukas. Mathias fought to tip the scales towards something romantic, but the man was a cleverly crafted wall of emotion - or lack thereof. He never gave anything away. While under normal circumstances Mathias would be thrilled to receive any form of attention from the poker-faced doctor, right now it would require too much energy to figure out what he meant. Lukas too often spoke in riddles and dodged what he really felt in an effort to remain the poster child for emotionless when it came to a personal life.

"Lukas."

" _Dr. Bergen_ , to you."

"Don't give me that shit." Mathias surprised even himself when his fist slammed against the wall beside him, his words sharp and filled with venom. Where was the energy for such frustration coming from? He needed to eat something and sleep – _soon_.

"This is a work conversation."

"Then you can schedule an appointment and see me later," he ground out between clenched teeth. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and moved to exit, making a point to knock Lukas into the lockers with his shoulder as he passed, "my office hours are over for the day, _Dr. Bergen_."

Lukas didn’t work in the ER or in an OR, he had no right to demand miracles then get pissed when magic didn’t exist, to be mad when saving a life wasn’t good enough because it didn’t go the way he had envisioned. Mathias knew, somewhere in the back of his sleep-deprived mind, that Lukas was only upset because a carefree childhood had been ripped away today. They were both in agreement that it was shit luck, but Mathias couldn’t find it in himself to reach for this common ground. Right now, Lukas was being irrational and he felt like feeding his own dissatisfaction rather than stemming it. It was _his_ patient that had been affected, after all.

He turned down the hall towards the elevators, hoping to make it to his car then home before he passed out. Lukas would be in his office next time Mathias came to work, they could smooth out whatever weird disagreement was sitting between them after they’d both had time to put the last 48 hours behind them. Mathias briefly considered sleeping in one of the on-call rooms, but he wanted his own bed after such a long shift...

Mathias groaned when he heard Lukas following after him.

"You could have saved it."

Mathias whirled around and spat, "No, I could not have. Get your fucking head out of the clouds. I'm good at what I do, but I'm not a fairy fucking godmother." He was standing so close to Lukas their noses were almost touching. Lukas did not waver at the tone or sheer loudness of Mathias' voice and this only made him angrier. "I appreciate a loyal fan, but do you ever think you're putting my abilities too high on a pedestal? I can’t make something out of nothing, and that kid had nothing viable left. You were watching from the gallery, you saw it as clear as I did. The one fucking time you show any emotion and it’s illogical. For a smart man, you are being a fucking moron. I saved a life and I stand by the decisions I made today in _my_ OR," Mathias injected as much poison into his words as he was able. Lukas looked like he was about to interject with what Mathias could only assume would be a scathing retort, so he cut him off, "you cranberry fuck-muffin. Go back to your perfect, happy babies in their carefree cradles."

Lukas snapped. He did not say anything, he didn't have to. He arched one of his fucking perfect eyebrows and pressed his lips into a thin line. He calmly stepped around Mathias and continued down the hall without a sound.

Goddamn car accidents, emotional pediatricians, children, hospitals, and being awake for far too long. Somehow, Mathias had crossed an invisible line, and he knew he couldn't let their conversation end there, no matter how badly he just wanted to go home. Lukas was comparable to a wound on the edge of festering. Ending the conversation there might mean all of Lukas’ barriers that Mathias had carefully deconstructed would go back up, likely without chance of them coming back down again.

"Lukas, wait" he was too tired for this, but he went after his fellow doctor anyway.

Lukas ducked into an elevator just as the doors were closing. Mathias waited long enough to see what direction it was going before barreling into the stairwell.

He made it to the next floor in time to see Lukas' coat billowing around a corner. He took off after him, calling the pediatrician's name, but getting no response.

They blew through a pair of double doors and into General Pediatrics, all the staff at reception paused to look up as Lukas stomped his way across the room.

"Lukas, wait!" he reached out only to have his hand knocked away.

Through another set of doors Mathias finally cornered Lukas, pushing him into a small alcove and trapping him between his hands on the wall.

"Lukas, _listen_ to me, I had to make a tough call." Lukas turned his head away, crossing his arms tight over his chest, his lips pursed. Mathias leaned closer, trying to get the stubborn pediatrician to look at him. Lukas refused to oblige. Typical. "It was the kid's best option. I couldn't risk an infection that could kill him later." Not to mention the trauma of being in surgery for so long – no body, no matter how big or small, could have handled that after being trapped in a minivan under a semi-truck.

"You don't know that."

"I do, though."

"No!" Lukas snapped his head to give Mathias a withering glare, "it could have been saved." Mathias shook his head and pushed away from the wall, lifting his hands in surrender. Clearly, neither were in a state of mind to have a conversation that went anywhere productive.

"I see these things every day, Lukas. It was a tough call, but the _right_ one to give the kid a chance." Lukas' knees seemed to buckle and he sagged against the wall behind him. Mathias realized, right then, that Lukas had likely been awake just as long, if not longer than himself. He had not been in a long, gruesome surgery, but Mathias knew he had dealt with something far heavier than he himself had. He reached out, exhaustion creeping back into his limbs, and pulled Lukas into a loose hug. Shaking, he timidly slid his hands up Mathias' chest and clutched at the front of his faded, red t-shirt.

Suddenly, their argument was no longer about a little boy losing a leg. It had never been.

"There was nothing you could do," he murmured into Lukas' hair, arms tightening around him. He leaned into him, for comfort and for his own stability. "It wasn't your fault." Lukas continued to shake against Mathias' chest, his breathing shallow and uneven. He smelled like coffee with faint undertones of rubbing alcohol and latex. "Nobody could have saved her, Lukas. She was too far gone when she got here. But, her brothers are here, _they're alive_ , and you helped make that happen." His own breathing was ragged, now. All of Lukas' behaviour fell into place, making sense.

The little boy he had operated on only a few hours ago was not the only victim of the crash. He had a younger sister and brother that were also there. He had been briefed on the details of the accident before he even reached the ER: three children ages 4, 6, and 8 were among the more severely injured in a multi-car pileup. They had been in a minivan that lost control, rolled, slid, and skidded to a halt under the rigging of a tipped semitrailer. The little girl must have been sitting on her mother's lap when it happened.

When Mathias' pager went off and he ran to the ER, Lukas was already there. He remembered running with the team from the ambo straight for the OR, passing Lukas along the way. He had looked up and caught Lukas’ eye, blood smeared on his pale face, eyes wide in a moment of panic. He had noticed the small girl on the stretcher, unresponsive, even with the hospital's best pediatrician and emergency team at her side. Lukas was calling orders to nearby nurses, trying to rescue something that was already lost. Mathias had noticed all this as he rushed toward his own patient to prep for surgery, a young boy with severe crush injuries.

He had forgotten until just now.

More than his surgical team had been affected by the accident. Mathias may have saved a life, but the family had still been torn apart beyond repair. Mathias hadn't been the one to search out the parents, beaten and bloody from their own injuries, and tell them there was nothing more to be done for their little girl. He hadn't been the one, standing at the bedside of a little boy as he woke in the ICU, his first words asking after his older brother and younger sister. He never had to explain to a little boy that no, he couldn't see his sister right now, or tomorrow, or even the day after that.

Lukas had.

"It's not your fault," Mathias said again, holding Lukas as tightly as his tired arms would allow.

Lukas took a shuddering breath, rubbing his face against Mathias' t-shirt; he felt the dampness of silent tears soaking into the fabric. "I know."

The physical, mental, and emotional toll from the last 24 hours was seeping deeper into Mathias' bones, and he leaned into Lukas more, struggling to keep them both upright. They stood silent for a long while, wavering on the brink of balance and falling over. Mathias breathed deeply, appreciating the warmth pressed against him. He willed everything inside him to feel numb. Hunger was losing the battle to blissful, dreamless slumber.

"You need to sleep." Lukas' hand was firm, steady on Mathias' shoulder. He had barely registered that the smaller doctor had pulled away, untangling himself from their embrace. He felt Lukas’ cool fingers curl around his wrist and allowed himself be led out of the alcove and down the hall. He was laying on a cot in an on-call room before his brain could process what was happening. Lukas was tucking a gray, scratchy blanket in around his shoulders, his face not showing any signs of his prior tears.

Had Mathias only imagined him crying? He didn't have the energy to brush his hands over his shirt to feel for tear-stains. Perhaps he would never know for sure. It didn't matter, though. He could feel himself slipping out of consciousness.

"Lukas," he forced his eyes to open a crack. The pediatrician froze, his hand on the door about to leave, his hair looked like a halo around his head in the light coming from the hallway outside. "I'd kiss you right now if you were closer." He felt his face split into a grin and he closed his eyes, asleep a moment later.

*

When Mathias finally woke, the first thing he was aware of was the sharp, empty feeling of his stomach. The second was a headache that was splitting down his head like his brain was melting out of his ears. The third, as he struggled to sit up – _what time was it?_ \- was the bottle of water and a cranberry muffin tightly packed in plastic wrap on the small table beside the cot. There was a note scrawled on Winnie-the-Pooh paper that read:

' _Page me when you're conscious. I'll take you to get some real food before you starve to death. - LB_ '

 

*

" _I'd kiss you right now if you were closer._ "

The words echoed in the air and followed Lukas around wherever he went. He tried to ignore them, to pretend they weren't there, but he couldn't. He felt like other people could see them, could hear what had been said. They followed him all the way home, they haunted his dreams and stalked him all the way back to the hospital the next day. It felt like they trailed after him, tangled up underfoot, as he walked from his car, past patient registration, through the halls, and right into the middle of his department.  

"You okay, doctor?" Even the reception staff seemed to sense something was different. Was it tattooed across his forehead? He waved away the concern, giving a curt nod in response.

What a terribly unprofessional thing to say to someone.

Lukas had worked with Mathias for many years. Mathias, despite working in a totally different department on another floor, seemed to be everywhere. Lukas would turn around and he'd be leaning on the counter at reception, chatting up the staff, or coming down the hall with a giant, goofy grin, or suddenly sitting next to Lukas with his lunch in hand.

" _I'd kiss you right now if you were closer._ "

Mathias developed the terrible habit of delighting in catching Lukas off guard. He'd exit a room after checking on a patient and-

"Bergen!" Lukas would nearly jump out of his skin, clutch at his chest, and struggle to contain a flurry of blasphemous words from spilling out of his mouth in surprise.

"Dr. Kohler, what do you want?" he'd finally choke out once he was sure he wasn't going to drop dead of a heart attack. Mathias would grin like an idiot and scratch the back of his head, feigning innocence.

"Ahh, nothin'. I just like watching your face when you're surprised," he'd laugh, "you're just so cute."

"Well, stop it." Lukas would spin on his heel and march away. Did he want Mathias to follow him or leave him alone? He could never quite decide.

" _I'd kiss you right now if you were closer._ "

He would often ask how on earth he found himself in the viewing gallery of Mathias' surgeries any chance he got. He didn't particularly like surgery, and he was even less interested in ruptured appendixes or stab wounds to the abdomen. Emergency medicine is so _messy_. And yet... Mathias was a genius with a scalpel – perhaps not the best of combinations. He was fascinating to watch, though. All manner of machines and monitors could be screaming away at him, nurses in a frenzied panic, and he'd keep his wits about him. He could calmly assess even the grimmest of circumstances and make practical decisions. He was a magician.

How many times now had Lukas seen someone on that cold, stainless steel table and wondered if there was no more hope for the poor patient? Then, Mathias would swoop in, all laughter and giant smiles, and perform a miracle.

" _I'd kiss you right now if you were closer._ "

"How did you do it?" Lukas asked Mathias one day. He had been waiting for Mathias to scrub out of the operating room.

"Pardon?"

"That man," Lukas nodded through the small window of the OR door to the patient getting prepped for recovery. "I saw him when he came into the ER. His arm was obliterated."

"Oh, that!" Mathias clapped a hand on Lukas' shoulder and gave a friendly squeeze, "when you're buds with an orthopedic specialist like Dr. Ivanov, things like that don't seem so scary." Mathias would praise the entire surgical team, insisting that it was a group effort to achieve whatever magic he performed.

" _I'd kiss you right now if you were closer._ "

Mathias was like a puppy, constantly nipping at Lukas' ankles.

"Surely you have your own work to accomplish."

"Nah, why do you think I have a pager? They'll call if they need me." His entire face split into a grin. He seemed to shower Lukas in smiles all day long. He would have found it implausibly annoying if Mathias wasn't so damn _cute_. Lukas did his best to ignore the flutter in his chest and focus on the x-ray image of an arm in front of him. He sighed. "That there is a greenstick fracture," Mathias nodded at the image, swinging his feet while sitting on the top of Lukas' desk.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious." He meant only to shoot him a warning look, but was distracted by the goofy smile, then a sudden idea. "Williams. He's in room 303."

"What?" The grin slid from Mathias' face.

"The kid, Mason Williams," he ripped the image from the lighted wall and popped it back into the chart in his arms before handing the whole thing over to Mathias. "He will need a cast. If you insist on hanging around all day long, and have none of your own work, I will find things to keep you out of my hair." He waved at Mathias to hurry along, "303."

" _I'd kiss you right now if you were closer._ "

That fateful night.

He had lost patients before, he wasn't sure why this one hit him so much harder than normal. Maybe it was because he'd already been working for 10 hours, maybe it was because of the circumstances surrounding the accident...

He had known the moment he laid eyes on her that there was nothing to be done. She had likely already been dead at the scene. He wasn't sure what colour her pyjamas had been originally, but by the time he saw them they were stained a dark red-brown.

"What happened?" he’d asked, running over to a group of paramedics switching out on chest compressions.

"Brutal car accident across the whole highway. They were coming back from vacation, I think. Hoping to push through to home instead of stopping in a motel." His eyes roamed over the girl's face; she was so small. "It was a massive pile up. They must'a been rear-ended, slid under a semi that had gone over. She was thrown from the car in the process."

"Was she not belted in?" The paramedic shook his head and shrugged.

The next moments were a blur as Lukas tried to find where all she was injured and how. Her heart was not beating without help, she was only breathing because of tubes, a bag, and a tired-looking paramedic. He wiped at the sweat on his brow as more teams of paramedics burst through the emergency room doors. He could hear a woman screaming for her children. "My baby! _Please!_ You have to help her!" Lukas urged himself to _try_. Maybe, just maybe, he thought he could fix everything.

He looked up and had caught Mathias' eye as he ran past with his own small patient. It felt like time slowed down as he watched him run, their eyes locking, the cardiac monitor screamed flat-line in Lukas' ear.

" _Page me when you're conscious. I'll take you to get some real food before you starve to death_ "

Mathias did not page Lukas that day, or even the next. Three days went by before one morning, on Lukas' day off, his pager began to sound, a phone number flashing across the screen. Lukas called the number and Mathias picked up.

"You still going to take me for some _real_ food?" Lukas stopped breathing. "I know I'm a few days late, but I wanted to make sure we wouldn't be interrupted by work." With a sigh he agreed, he glanced at his watch and suggested later that evening, then they arranged where to meet.

He didn't know why he felt so uneasy. Nervous. He had had lunch with Mathias practically every day if you counted all the times Mathias simply followed Lukas around while eating a sandwich. The only difference was that, this time, Lukas had initiated and Mathias hadn't simply turned up out of the blue with food in hand.

They also were not on the hospital grounds.

And Mathias was walking towards him, an easy smile on his face, strawberry hair neatly styled. He was dressed in pressed black slacks and a deep crimson dress shirt, a dark sport coat was draped over one of his arms. Lukas decided to ignore the way his heart-rate sped up when he saw him.

"Dr. Bergen, is this a _date?_ " Mathias chuckled as he slid into the chair opposite Lukas. Lukas fidgeted.

"What has given you that impression, Dr. Kohler?" He felt hot under his own collar and suspected a blush was creeping its way into his cheeks. He was furious that his own emotions dared display themselves without permission.

Mathias held up three fingers and said, "because you look nervous and you told me to dress nicely before you hung up on me earlier."

"This is a nice restaurant."

"That was point number three," he plopped his elbow on the table, rattling the cutlery, and rest his chin in the palm of his hand. "You look very handsome today, Lukas." If there wasn't a blush in his cheeks earlier, one was certainly blooming now.

"Shut up and look at your menu."


End file.
